Kail reached another platform and ducked behind the vine-wrapped marble column that rose from it as blasts of energy cracked and hissed around him.
“Oh, of course!” cried the first one. “Binjamet duQuaille, the petty thief whose mother we arrested.”
More blasts of energy flashed past, and Kail hunkered down. The blasts sizzled as they hit the water, and fish bobbed to the surface, floating belly up.
“Does this Binjamet have any powers I should be worried about?” said the second one. He was moving, his steps light but audible on one of the wooden bridges. Kail looked over, saw him come into view on one side, flanking him, and dove into the water.
He realized quickly that the water was only waist high, and pulled himself along the bottom more than swam. He heard a froth of bubbles behind him as the blast hit where he had been, and the water near his feet burned for a moment.
He wanted to come up for air but pulled himself along slowly instead. Splashing would tell them where he was, but the pool was filled with lily pads and fish and flowers and crap, and if he moved slowly, he thought it possible that he might not die immediately.
Blasts struck the water a ways away, and then off in the other direction, hissing and bubbling. Kail pinched his nose, looked up, and aimed for a patch of darkness as he came up as quietly as he could, lungs burning.
He was under one of the wooden bridges, which arched just enough to give him room to get his head out of the water.
“Where are you, little man?” called the first paladin from right over his head. “Your file doesn’t say anything about breathing underwater, so you must be here somewhere.”
“His file doesn’t say much of anything,” the other paladin called back from behind one of the marble pillars, and Kail heard the sound of a blast hitting the water again. “No magic. The Silkworth girl is better with locks and has alchemical training. I suppose Lochenville keeps him around out of sentiment.”
“Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is!” Ghylspwr shouted again, and above his head, Kail heard the first ancient sigh.
“We’re not going to kill you,” the paladin called out begrudgingly, and sent another blast of crimson into the water, frying some lily pads and sending more fish to the surface. “But if I have to get wet searching, you’re not going to be happy when I find you.”
Kail reached up, grabbed his ankle, and pulled hard. The paladin fell, and Kail lunged onto the bridge on top of him.
He got in two good punches before the paladin got in a kick that flung Kail away, and the scout got back to his feet to see the paladin coming at him, grinning broadly, black coat flaring dramatically. “Oh, look at you, fighting.”
“Yeah, look at me,” Kail said, and came in swinging.
The paladin blocked one punch, stepped away from a second, and spun into a kick that caught Kail in the chest and flung him across the bridge and onto the platform at the other side. He hit the marble, rolled into the column hard enough to bounce off, and sent a lovely reading chair toppling into the pool as he slammed into it.
“Shall I?” the other paladin called, and Kail looked over to see that the man had his arm raised, pointed dead on target.
“Don’t strain yourself.” The first paladin walked lightly across the bridge, still grinning. “He’s weak enough that you might accidentally kill him, and Commander Ghylspwr wants him alive.” He cracked his knuckles. “You see, little man, this is for your own good.”
“Uh-huh.” Kail looked past him at Bertram, who had crossed a bridge onto one of the platforms. He held Ghylspwr up high, as though lifting the weapon for a better view.
Kail could see the memory of his own eyes in Bertram’s.
“Ghylspwr wants me alive, huh? Why’s that? Is his mother lonely?” He jerked his chin at Ghylspwr. “Listen, Ghyl, she can’t be that lonely, because when I went to her place last night, there was a line out around the corner.”
“Kutesosh gajair’is!” Ghylspwr yelled, and Bertram flung the mighty warhammer.
Kail was in the water before it even left Bertram’s hand.
He dove, came up, heard the warhammer hit the marble column and shatter it, and saw the asshole paladin’s smug expression wiped off his face as a bunch of shattered rock came down on top of him.
But Kail only gave it a glance, because he was pulling himself out of the water, rolling back onto a bridge just as a crimson flash of light ripped into the pool where he’d been, killing even more poor fish. Then Kail was up, running, over the bridge, to the platform, to the next bridge, and then to the platform where Bertram still stood.
The former archvoyant had not moved from his throw. He stood like a statue or a broken puppet, arm extended, hand open.
“Bertram!” Kail yelled. “Bertram!”
He reached the man, the poor broken man with the tortured eyes, and slapped his hand shut. “Bertram! He’s not in your hand! He’s not in your hand!” Kail pushed the man’s hand into a fist, his dark hands holding Bertram’s shut. “He’s not here!”
Bertram blinked. He looked at his hand. “I . . . I . . .”
Kail met his eyes, and Bertram sagged and fell into him, arms going taut around him.
Kail wanted to flinch and pull away, but some things were more important.
He was interrupted by mocking laughter, and he turned to see the other ancient. “Was this your plan?” the paladin said as he crossed a bridge, arm trained on Kail.
“Maybe there’s a reason they keep me around after all, huh?” Kail called back.
“A clever tongue?” The paladin shook his head. “A witty slave is more trouble than he’s worth.”
“You’re right,” Kail said, and gently pushed Bertram behind him. He looked down. Bertram’s hands were squeezed shut of their own volition now, and with a smile, Kail turned back to the paladin. “And I sure as Byn-kodar’s hell can’t fight you. But you know, you’ve overlooked two things that really should’ve been in that file of yours.”
The paladin stepped onto a bridge, still smiling. “And those are?”
“First off,” Kail said, “you don’t wanna go after a lady who manipulates magical energy with magical energy, because that’s probably just gonna piss her off.”
The paladin paused on the bridge, and the water around him began to froth.
“And second, Diz doesn’t just mess with energy. She can make zombies too. If only we had a giant pile of dead fish nearby for her to play with.” The paladin looked down at the frothing water, and Kail smiled, “Ah, wait. We do.”
A writhing mass of golden scales and white bellies roared out of the water, mouths gaping, and hit the paladin like a solid wave of flesh. He hit the water, screaming, and as he went under, the water around him churned white, and then red.
“Nicely done,” Desidora said as she rose from the water, standing upon fish that floated belly up to support her weight. She was drenched, her sopping hair and dress pitch black.
There was a time when that would’ve bothered Kail.
Today, he grabbed Bertram. “You too, Diz. Come on.”
She turned, her skin chalk white, gazing at the pile of rubble under which Ghylspwr sat. “He’s down there!”
“Diz. Not now. You’ve got nothing that can hurt him, and if he gets into a paladin’s hand, we’re dead.”
“He used me,” she said, and even through the coldness of her death aura, Kail heard the hurt. “He lied to me.”
“And you’ll make him pay for that someday, Diz, I promise.” Kail took her arm, not hard. “Not today.”
She turned, her eyes dark, and then she blinked, and her hair slid back to red, and her dress to pale green. She nodded shortly and pushed past him to where Tahla lay at the foot of the steps. She checked the woman’s pulse, then grimaced and shook her head.
“Go in peace, Yeshki,” Kail murmured. “Where to now?”
“Either the treeship or inside to search for Loch,”
“Treeship, then. You don’t send more people after a scout
unless you’re sure she needs help.” Kail nodded and, holding Bertram gently, led the way out of the garden. “Right now I feel bad for anybody in Loch’s way.”
Everything seemed to be happening too quickly for Tern.
She was fumbling for her crossbow while the puppeteer raised his arm toward Icy. She didn’t get it out in time. The puppeteer fired a blast of crimson energy, and Icy, barely a few feet away, did one of those crazy things he did with his body, twisting to the side and sliding onto his back at the same time so that the blast ruffled his golden robes but hit nothing else.
“Icy! Fight him!” Tern flipped the safety off the crossbow.
“I cannot.” Icy sprang back to his feet as a crimson blast cracked the stage where he had lain.
“If you’re that Unstoppable guy, you can. Fight him!” Tern raised the crossbow, aimed carefully, and fired a perfect shot at the puppeteer’s heart.
The puppeteer leaned back in an elegant move almost identical to Icy’s, and the bolt whisked past him.
“I cannot!” Icy shouted, and then the puppeteer’s next blast clipped his shoulder, and he spun in the air and landed on the stones past the stage, rolling to a stop and shaking his head a moment later.
“Tern!” Hessler shouted, and Tern looked over to see the trackers running into the market square, the scorpion in his cloaked-dwarf disguise and the ogre and the bony troll lady. The crowd was screaming as the ogre swatted people aside.
Too much, too fast. Icy was a killer and Hessler was behind her, and she had no idea which bolt to use.
She went with silver, in case the trackers were vulnerable to it like fairy creatures were, but she was still looking at the puppeteer.
“Acquisition parameters have changed,” the puppeteer called out. “We have Loch. These are expendable.” He looked at Icy and raised his arm.
Tern fired, and again the puppeteer dodged it, and he shot Tern a look and called, “You’re next,” as he fired. The blast of crimson energy lashed out.
It hit Dairy instead as he stepped out in front of Icy, and he stumbled, then stood back up, shaking off the blast. “I won’t let you hurt my friends!”
Hessler was flinging illusions at their assailants, and Tern remembered that he’d said they affected the creatures as though they were solid. Shackles formed around the troll, and a great blade slashed at the scorpion. “Watch for the feedback,” he was muttering, and as the scorpion lashed its stinger at the blade, Hessler flicked the illusion away.
The crowd was screaming and running now. Someone slammed into Tern, and she fell to the stones, dizzy and shaken, then pushed herself back to her feet, fumbling with her crossbow and bolt. Dairy was trading blows with the puppeteer, and Hessler was juggling illusions as the bony troll slid out of the shackles.
And then the crowd parted, and something hit her, and it felt like cool water splashed across her chest, and she looked up to see the ogre standing over her, with its fist, magically incorporeal, inside her chest.
“If you are expendable,” the ogre said, her tusks muffling the words, “then this is not murder.”
Tern had no time to react.
But as the cold feeling started to change, a giant fist of solid stone slammed into the ogre, and she crashed to the ground yards away. Tern fell to the ground as well and looked down at her chest, seeing five little finger holes in her dress right around the heart.
“You want her,” Hessler said coldly, standing over Tern with hands raised, “you go through me,” and Tern looked up at him, breathing hard, to tell him she was all right.
She saw the troll behind him, but by the time she screamed a warning, it was too late.
The bony lady was suddenly a creature of rope and sinew, twining herself around Hessler in coils of flesh, and he flinched and tried to fight it, but she was like a snake, wrapping tighter and tighter.
“Icy!” Tern raised her crossbow. “Dairy! Help!” Hessler was glowing with little sparkles everywhere, and he seemed smaller or thinner or . . .
Gone.
“Mister Hessler!” came a cry, followed by a cracking impact, and the puppeteer sailed across the market square, hit a wall hard enough to leave a mark, and did not move.
In front of Tern, the troll coiled herself back into a woman’s shape.
“Bring him back,” Tern said.
“There is no back,” the troll said with a sneer. “He is scattered to the—”
A crossbow bolt thunked into her chest.
“Bring him back,” Tern said.
“He is dead,” the troll said, “and my cursed flesh cares little for bolts or blades.”
“Does it burn?” the alchemist asked, and the troll looked down at the stain spreading across her dress from the bolt. Tern tossed a flask that shattered as it hit the troll, and as the two liquids mixed and clinging flames wreathed the screaming creature, she shouted, “Bring him back, you bitch! Bring him back!”
“Her curse cannot be reversed,” the ogre said, and Tern looked over to see Dairy on the ground, groaning, as the ogre came toward her. “He is dead, transformed into the very shadows he used in his figments, and soon, you will arching ardor.”
Shadow-touched Besnisti, Ululenia said, her hooves clopping on the stone of the market square as she put herself between Tern and the ogre. Caught between here and there, never real, a cursed reminder to your people that you came from the Glimmering Folk. That you are monsters.
“Dark fey,” the ogre growled, shaking her head and coming forward again. “Stolen magic of the ancients, and turned to consuming your own. We are not so different, you and I.”
There is one difference, Ululenia said, and something in her voice was different, and when Tern looked at her, her shape was different as well. She was still a unicorn, but her shining horn curved and bristled with spines. Her hooves were clawed, and fangs gleamed in her long mouth. I am not bleeding from the throat.
She lunged, and the ogre roared, and then fell back, and sank to her knees, one hand trying vainly to cover the dark blood that poured from her wound.
The same blood stained Ululenia’s fanged muzzle as she turned to Tern. We must flee. There will be more.
Tern looked back. The scorpion had pulled the still-burning creature away, and they were across the market square now. Dairy was still on the ground, Icy on his knees beside him.
Hessler was gone.
“I want him back,” Tern said, and let Ululenia pull her away.
Loch found Tahla’s body at the foot of the stairs leading back to the water garden.
It seemed Naria had been right about Loch’s presence here endangering people.
Loch closed Tahla’s eyes, said a quick prayer, and stepped onto the path of wooden bridges leading between the platforms. One of the columns rising up from the platforms had been destroyed, and the water was full of dead fish.
She crossed a bridge, stopped at a platform, and inhaled. It didn’t smell like flowers anymore.
“Isafesira!”
Loch opened her eyes. Irrethelathlialann was at the far end of the water garden, making his way across the paths toward her.
“Ethel.” She started walking again. “What are you doing here?”
“Thelenea told me where you were. I discovered that the ancients were waiting here, and I came as quickly as I could.”
Loch nodded, still walking. “You weren’t wrong.” She crossed another bridge, turned at a platform, and headed for the one where Kail and Desidora had been waiting. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I need you if I am to survive the coming of the ancients,” Irrethelathlialann said, coming to meet her. “With the Dragon gone, whatever mad scheme you have in mind is the only hope of the Elflands.”
She nodded again and turned to reclaim her walking stick where she’d left it.
And spun to parry the blow that would have caught her in the back.
“I think you have your own plan to save the Elflands,” Loch said as her blow knocked his aside.
Irrethelathlialann brought his rapier up in a salute. The red wood of the blade gleamed. “How did you know?”
“I’ve faced you across the card table,” Loch said, and drew her blade from the walking stick’s hidden sheath. “You think humanity is a waste of time.”
The elf’s blade flashed, and Loch parried, then countered, driving him back. “Tell me I’m wrong, Isafesira.”
“You only helped us because it was what the Dragon wanted,” Loch said, pressing her attack. She drove him back across the bridge, then danced back as his retreat turned into a roll that swept his blade at her ankles. “As soon as he was gone, you should have cut us loose. Instead you offered information and loaned us a treeship.” She slashed, and he sidestepped to the edge of the platform, leaning farther than any human except maybe Icy would be able to without falling, and countered with a slash at her head that she caught, locking their blades.
“I never dreamed that my manners would give me away,” he said as he moved in, pushing on the locked blades, and Loch saw the angle of his body change with the twist he tried to hide, and caught the stab from the dagger he’d slipped into his other hand on the stick-sheath. “Impressive. You’ve gotten better.”
“Last time we fought, I bled deep.” She shoved hard, and he went with it, pivoted around her, and spun into a slash that she blocked with her blade. She got a shot into his ribs with the stick-sheath and took a shallow cut across the forearm from his off-hand dagger. “I try not to make the same mistake twice.”
His kick caught her at the ankle, and rather than fall while vulnerable to his blade, she turned it into a tumble into the pool, slashing out even as she fell with a low sweep that the elf leaped over.
Loch hit the water, surfaced with her blade and stick moving, and got lucky, catching his stab with blind luck and sweeping it aside as he lunged into the pool after her. “I’m still faster,” Irrethelathlialann murmured, sliding into the water with barely a splash.
The Paladin Caper Page 25